I want a few new set of dice. I've been playing with a hodgepodge of dice since my main gaming sets were stolen from my car this summer. I was disappointed when i found out the car had been broken into and my ear-buds stolen, but when i realized my dice were gone too, I was mad.

And if those new dice want to actually roll high form me in critical moments, i wouldn't complain.

One of the important things to do is make it part of your routine. I've been playing on and off with a group for almost 15 years. We play every other Friday night. When i got married, my wife and I discussed this and once she realized how important it was to me she was accepting of the once every 2 weeks game, though she still teases me saying that I'm abandoning her.

Having the schedule in place makes it a lot easier, that way everyone (and thier families) know what is planned and when. I agree with the poster that said you should give your wife some extra me time. Perhaps schedule that every couple weeks she is able to get away with friends for an afternoon and you'll take care of the kids without her having to worry about anything. Having something to look forward to helps keep things from getting overwhelming.

Incomprehensible Adventurers.
Some players want to bring in PC’s whose personality and or build make no sense in a cooperative team setup (or at least not for that specific campaign/group).

One player brought in a PC that was apathetic. He didn’t care about or want to participate in anything. He expected the rest of the party to constantly cajole and convince him all the time about everything. Then he was irritated when we got tired of it and would just say what we were doing. If he didn’t follow, we’d just leave him behind.

Another had a PC that was “ruled by the Lords of Chance” in all his actions. He constantly rolled a dice to see what his character would do even if it ended up being disastrous to the rest of the group.

If we were really playing in-character we would have kicked both of those guys out of the team. You couldn’t count on them and they were more trouble than help. But if we said anything about it they got all offended since “I’m just role playing his personality!”
“Yeah and I’m role playing my PC’s personality which is not to put up with that bull carp any longer.”

I was actually the PC that got kicked out of the party. I was playing a magic resistant Barbarian who was not allowed to willfully resist a save against magic. And all the saves I made were against my party, including one time when the party was trying to rescue me with a teleport, and i resisted staying right where i was, in harms way (this was the first time that they actually knew something had happened and i'd resisted the spell). Between that and his lack of tactics he was kicked out of the group, and put to work somewhere else in the larger group that the party was working with (thus becoming an NPC).

The dynamic of how the characters played off each other and handled the situation made for great roleplaying (and fun memories).

A lot of the synergy has to do with the exact wording of the abilities. In the case of the summoning, there is a difference between the ability that triggers on casting and one that triggers on summoning. The casting triggers when you begin to cast the spell, this can be interrupted by damage or counter-spells, thus negating the actual summoning. The summoning triggers when the creature actually appears on your next turn (or on the current turn if things such as quicken spell are used).

Quote:

Lemme give you a wildly different example. Imagine that you have four abilities (I'm just making them up, I'm sure there's abilities a little like this somewhere):

1. Make Spells Firey. This allows you to convert any spell which does elemental damage to fire damage.
2. Bonus Cold Damage. This allows you to add 1d8 damage to any spell which does cold damage.
3. Bonus Fire Damage. This allows you to add 1d6 damage to any spell which does fire damage.
4. Generic Cold Spell. This does 1d3 cold damage.

You cast the spell, and convert it to fire damage. Do you get:

1. 1d3 fire damage from the spell, +1d6 fire because it is fire damage.
2. 1d3 damage from the spell, +1d8 cold damage because it is cold damage, then the 1d3+1d8 are converted to fire.
3. 1d3 damage from the spell, +1d8 cold damage, then the 1d3+1d8 are converted to fire, then you add 1d6 because it's fire damage.

In this case it makes a difference when the elemental damage is changed. If it's changed at the point when you cast the spell, it's a fire spell and not a cold spell from the start so #1 would apply.

Class Features:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Paladins are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, with all types of armor (heavy, medium, and light), and with shields (except tower shields).
Spells: Inquisitor Spell-list

With only the one AoO per round, the barbarian doesn't have to take the first one that is provoked. He can wait until the opponent he wants tries to attack him, at which point he uses his AoO for potentially devastating results. (For example, don't take the AoO when the fighter moves in to help his rogue friend, instead wait until the rogue is attacks and smack her instead.)

I'm currently running a game, teaching students who have had little to no experience with D&D in the past. In their third session they split the party, with 3 of them going into the sewers and two others assigned to check out some other things. The 3 in the sewers found out why you don't want to split the party when they ran into a couple of fights. The first fight was against two goblins that they took out quickly. The second fight was against 3 skeletons. Unfortunately the party cleric was one of the two left behind, and they did not have knowledge religion to know about the skeletons damage resistance. The 3 did finally prevail, but at the cost of two of them going down and needing to use their precious healing potions.

I think after this they might be a bit more reluctant to split the party, or at least make sure they look into the split party makeup a bit more throughly.

However, I would also apply a two-weapon fighting penalty to this maneuver since you are using both unarmed combat and a weapon.

I'm sorry but this has absolutely nothing to do with two-weapon fighting what-so-ever.

A fighter with 5 attacks could make an attack with 5 different weapons and not be 'two-weapon fighting' let alone whatever you might call 'five-weapon fighting'.

-James

The fighter with five different weapons wouldn't be able to get more then one attack with one weapon if he wants to switch weapons, because getting the second weapon out is a move action and that limits his attack to a standard action.

Thanks for the input. Since i'm new with this group of players, I don't know the personalities well enough to know if he would try to present something that was broken or if he understands how to create MCA. Sounds like he put together one that isn't going to be overpowered and break the game.

I'll definitely have to look into using more things like this in the future.

Arcane Ki Pool: Not gained till lvl 4, Can choose ki pool or arcane talents. = ½ lvl + Int points OK; not sure what you mean by arcane talents? There is an Arcane Talent feat? All the level based references in the Magus version of this would also then be increased by 3 levels. Gained at 4th, increases by +1 at 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th.

I think that the arcane talents here should actually read arcane pool. Basically he's creating one pool that could be used either as the arcane pool or ki pool.

Elghinn, I don't mind either way. I just wanted to get some thoughts of if his idea is balanced or way out there from people who have seen them before. I noticed a couple of things that i had questions with, basically wondering what is being given up at 1st level to gain flurry of blows, and the fact that Arcana with prerequisites should have their prerequisites 3 levels higher.

Basically I informed my players that anything 3rd party had to be passed by me so i could check them for balance before being approved.

It sounds like the DM is not doing his job correctly. If he has stated that Evil characters are not allowed but then doesn't do anything when the friend shows up with one but lets him play it, then he's breaking his own rule and by definition is not a great DM. He may still be a good DM but to be a great DM you have to be willing to be the bad guy sometimes and say "no, that is not allowed. Now go back and create a different character that meets the rules set up"

I have set up a rule when I DM that everything in regards to race and class are possible, but anything outside the core books (and certain books other books that I specify at the beginning of the campaign) has to be ran by me so that together me and the player can decide if the race / class is broken and if we can fit it into the campaign world. Most of the time it is possible to do, but sometimes we have to tweak a few things to make it either not be overpowered or to fit in with the setting that is being run.

I don't see this as a problem. It is still a limited resource, and if the paladin is burning through his lay on hands to smite, what happens when he is in a position that he needs that resource. It will be gone, and if the smites were used against non-evil, it will be wasted.

In the campaign I'm currently in my paladin has had to use his lay on hands to keep himself alive long enough for some of the other healers to step in and take care of things. So burning through those would be seen as a total waste. I have used smite evil without detecting evil a few times, but they were really good reasoning(one after being hit by a flame strike that hurt the 3 good characters more then the neutral ones, and the other on the beautiful woman who we had been told was eating tieflings and had piles of bodies and black candles spread around the room)

As for the people that have said a paladin wouldn't know if the smite worked I disagree. You know how hard you can hit, and what kind of damage you do. So if your sword is causing bigger wounds then normal, you would know it's because of a special power. Just like you can tell sometimes if the enemy has damage reduction, you hit it with all your might and it doesn't seem too concerned, there is something going on.